The Secret
by Hyperqbe
Summary: Sort of an AU fic after watching Gluhen. There is a terrible secret at the core of Schwarz. You may never see them the same way again...


The Secret  
  
It was going to be one of THOSE nights. You could taste it in the air.  
  
He laid out his garments slowly, reverently. Caressed the rough fabric and smooth, worn leather. A delicate shiver ran through him as his fingertips brushed over the dark stains that once had pumped from a living heart.  
  
He stripped off the trappings of civility and stood, naked, in the twilit room. Moving with the slow grace of a hunting cat, he knelt and picked up the box of matches, then rose and lit the first candle.  
  
One by one the candles flared to life, until he was ringed by fire. He knelt again and took two more things into his hands: a small plastic bottle and a slender, violently sharp knife.  
  
The bottle became the night's first sacrifice. After spilling its acrid contents into his palm, the too-calm man slathered the stuff into his hair, careful to wet it to the roots. He wiped his hands across his chest, leaving a shiny trail along the skin. The chemical burn sank in, but only a little. Already he was forgetting pain.  
  
For many minutes he stood there in silence broken only by the hiss and crackle of his candles. His own breath came as silently as the flight of owls.  
  
As though moved by some unseen clock, he turned and exited the ring of candles. He stepped into his bathroom and knelt beside the tub, leaning over to place his head beneath the spigot. He turned on the cold water and let it wash through his hair, taking the vile smell and all color with it.  
  
When that was done, he toweled off and took up a pair of scissors. His hair had grown so long, but when had it done this? No matter, it would all be fixed in moments. And so it was.  
  
Next, he tended to his face. The scars seemed to change with his mood, sometimes. This night they were distinct but pale, lacking the angry red that sometimes puckered around them and caused him to forget how long he'd had them.  
  
One last thing to do here... He opened the tiny plastic case and removed the contact lens that would give his visible eye its hellish aspect. Without it, he could almost be mistaken for a normal person. But it was a part of him as much as the scars were, as much as the brutally bleached hair.  
  
He regarded himself in the mirror: pale, so pale. Death is a pale man upon a pale horse, and so he is. One eye dark as regret, and one molten gold. He nodded at himself as though greeting an old friend.  
  
Time, however, was never a friend. It compelled him to do things, to answer an unheard call to battle when there was no foe, to search and punish wrongs so much greater than his fragile mind could imagine. And this night it compelled him to hurry.  
  
So he left the momentary shelter of his bathroom and returned to the unforgiving ring of fire. He knelt and crossed himself like a knight before combat. Then, with no wasted movement, he took up each garment in turn and dressed. Sturdy leather pants, black boots with soft paw-like soles, white t-shirt that was more than skin-tight, it constrained him like the embrace of angels. Black vest, half-gloves, and the eye-patch to cover the dark, haunted orb.  
  
Favorite knife, his poniard, and the first blood of the evening. His own, blood, running down his left arm, smeared into the leather vest in a gory benediction. Hand wet with blood, he snuffed out each candle with neat, sizzling precision.  
  
And then he went out, to hunt.  
  
On THOSE nights, I take Nagi into my room and lock the door. I make certain that I have two guns, and both are fully loaded.  
  
After that one incident, I lock the door into the kitchen, too.  
  
And we wait, the two of us, until morning shall return our lost brother to us once more. The strain is growing intolerable, but there is no way to change things. He is as he is, as he always has been, and as he must be. None of us are sane; why should we have expected him to be any different?  
  
So we let him go, to hunt, to punish. As long as he doesn't hunt here, I don't give a damn. But if he comes for Nagi, I will kill him. Even knowing that, somewhere inside, lives the man I love.  
  
And we wait, knowing that somewhere in Tokyo, Bradley J. Crawford is carving his way to God.  
  
____________________________  
  
Afterword:  
  
I wrote this fic in a fit of "Gluhen"-inspired creative chaos. It really bothered me that Farfarello only appeared as an apparent figment of Crawford's imagination, and a badly drawn figment at that. I started wondering how he got into Brad's brain, and how long he'd been there.  
  
The truth could be an ugly thing...  
  
Try imagining the entire "Weiss" story line with our dear American/Irish Jekyll and Hyde, and see how you feel in the morning. I did, and boy do I feel...odd. Please read and review: should this become a work in progress? I'm undecided, and that means I'm as impressionable as a German telepath at a Duran Duran concert. 


End file.
